Hi, i have a really old computer (about 5 years) and i'm looking to upgrade, I've been looking around a bit but I don't know what kind of performance to expect from what's out there and, of course, I want as much bang for the buck as possible.

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
Mostly gaming, i play a few MMORPGs which aren't that demanding but I plan on playing a lot of Battlefield 3 (FPS) when it comes out and want to have the best possible experience with it.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread
Around 1000$-1200$, may go a little higher if it's justified. This price should be for CPU, motherboard, ram, PSU, video card, case and storage (SSD or HDD). I know the performance gain from having a SSD but the reliability of those drives really worries me. (Don't care about optic drives, m&k, monitor, OS and sound card assuming there is on-board sound with MB)

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
Canada

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc, etc, etc, you get the picture.
Have been an Intel fanboy for a while but I'm not locked into that. What i'm looking for is the best possible performance, simple as that.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
Samsung SyncMaster P2270 (monitor), maybe some other parts just until i can decide whether they need replacing. Those are mentioned in the budget as the part I don't care about.

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
Yes, I have read quite a few but didn't seem to find one to suit my needs.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
Default speeds unless it's made really easy for me.

2500k for cpu and your choice of 1155 b3 stepping asus/giga baord. 150-200 range will get yo uan ud3/4p and
perhaps the p67pro from asus and so on
for gpu get one 6950 2gb
for psu one corsair or seasonic 650w, itll be enough,actually overkill.
for hdd perhaps a nice ssd for os(or one samsung f3/wd black 500gb), and a wd green 2tb for storage?
for case haf 912/922

A 60GB SSD is not that expensive especially the previous generation SF-1200 based SSDs they are pretty cheap these days and lightning fast. Durability of the SSD is more than enough for the average user as I don't think it is possible to max out it's daily quota.

Here's my comp I just put together at around your budget and I thought you might be interested. There are some additional items that have nothing to do with the core build, such as the microphone, etc. Also, there's a good chance you'll get free shipping, so also keep that in mind when looking at the price. NCIX no longer offers free shipping to the territories. Also, the 2500K and MSI G43 bundle at the bottom is actually $294.99. It's just that I had put together a system before with the same promotion bundle then canceled the order after I realized I wanted to make some changes. Since you're only allowed one item per promotion, NCIX's system didn't let me add the promotional item to the cart at the promotional price, since it thinks I already bought it once. Had to send a support ticket right after I made the order, but the staff at NCIX will update the price and send me an updated invoice in no time. Finally, there's about $50 in rebates that don't show up on the list. Those are only seen on the product pages.

At the very least, you may find the price matching URL's handy.

Important: The 400W PSU is not for the listed build. That PSU is going into the server build I already have and then I'll be taking the Corsair HX620 out of the server build and putting it into the listed one.

__________________For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

Tx all for your advice and for the links
I was just wondering though, I've looked around on the forum and everyone seems to be recommending the 2500k rather than the 2600k, any reason for that? Is it just the budget restrictions?

Probably. And for gaming it's still more important to have fewer higher speed cores than more slower ones. The 2500K is a quad core, the 2600K is a quad core with Hyper Threading, so the OS sees it as an 8-core. To be honest, I think the only people who should be buying the 2600K are those who plan to use it for Folding@Home, or video transcoding.

And if you are planning on running at default speeds, you can go to a H67 mobo and a 2500 (No K) to save yourself some money. The P67's and K model CPU's enable overclocking.

The purpose of this rig is to play games and not run multi threaded software so a Core i5 2500K will be more than enough. For the extra money you're just getting 4 virtual cores that are not the same as 4 physical cores in terms of performance. The extra money spent for the HT feature would be better used to get a fast SSD.